The once-revered Hoboken St. Patrick’s Day Celebration has become a bit complicated over the past few years, with the proud tradition of one of the region’s premier Irish-American parades having been supplanted by whatever the hell this is…

Historically, friends and families would gather for a parade down the center of Washington Street, then adjourn to a local bar or restaurant for a bit of harmless revelry. A good time was had by all.

But serving as the railhead for New Jersey Transit, as well as PATH and Light Rail, over the years Hoboken had unwittingly become the geographic crossroads for regional douchebaggery—with out-of-towners routinely rolling in and raising hell.

LepreCon (File photo)

The Hoboken St. Patrick’s Day Parade itself continued, more or less without incident—however, the “harmless revelry” that followed became increasingly contentious. Fights, public urination, public intoxication became the order of the day.

The City of Hoboken’s knee-jerk response at the time was to crack down on the bars. The people of Hoboken responded by hosting house parties—taking the scene out of a relatively controlled barroom environment and putting it in people’s living rooms. Everyone invited all their @$$hole friends to town, so they could urinate, defecate, regurgitate all over the streets of Hoboken.

The City of Hoboken then enacted a “ZERO TOLERANCE” policy, fining individuals up to $2,000 plus community service for “consumption of alcohol/open container in public, urinating in public, maintaining a nuisance (disorderly and unsafe house parties), disorderly conduct & improper behavior.” Nevertheless, the first Saturday in March still saw hundreds of arrests and citations.

That said, these numbers pale in comparison to the “sleighshow” of Hoboken SantaCon, and are certainly a far cry from the peak Erin Go Blah of 7-10 years ago.

“In my 25 years of policing in Hoboken, this was the calmest I have ever seen the first Saturday of March,” said Police Chief Ken Ferrante, after last year’s event. “I am glad that no officers were injured during the event.”